Every movie references you find in ‘Kalki 2898 AD’

Kalki 2898 AD is an ambitious visual extravaganza created by Nag Ashwin, where he kind of created a world which is mostly adapted from ‘Dune’ & ‘Star Wars’. Here also it is about the birth of a Messiah and resistance against an imperial faction, within a mix of mythology from Mahabharata.

Now heading to the references and inspirations presented in the movie.

Movie opens with a sequence of Mahabharata Yudha as Ashwathama, son of Dronacharya; the Commander of Kaurvas getting dismantled as Lord Krishna removes the Stone of Immortality from his forehead. This scene felt like a reference to the scene from Avengers: Infinity war where Thanos removes the Mind stone from Vision’s forehead, for the fact that the latter visualised such a scene on the big screen.

Then talking about the Land of Terrains in the World of Kalki which are classified according their Classes; named as ‘Kaashi’, where the lower-class people live with most of them dreaming about entering the ‘Complex’. Complex, the Land of Superiors is ruled by Supreme Yaskin and his commanders. These two lands remind about the “City of Zaun” and “Kingdom of Piltover” from the 2021 released Netflix Animated series ‘Arcane‘. Especially the World and people of Kaashi and City of Zaun looks so identical with everything happening there, the uncivilized yet technologically sound place. Here, the people are deemed not worthy enough to trust upon and goes on the uncanny resemblance. But to remind you, Arcane is a show based on the Game series “League of Legends”. Then the third terrain in Kalki; Shambala is more like the Hidden ‘Wakanda’ from ‘Black Panther’ but this place has characters close to the Planet of Arrakis from Dune.

Then there is a scene where Deepika Padukone‘s character is being introduced in a sequence where she is seen as one of the inmates in a hostage setting in the Complex. Here the sequence we get to see is Deepika living a repetitive style of living, doing same kind of activities, having same kind of food, scribbling the walls the number of days she’s been inside there. This sequence gives the flashes of Korean classic ‘Oldboy’, where the protagonist ‘Dea Su Ho’ is treated inside the Cabin where he’s kept as a hostage. The loop of days with his activities, food consumption and counting on the days are focally visualised in as a sequence.

Now coming up to the characters, Bhairava played by Prabhas, who is seen as a mechanic and bounty hunter, has the shades and traits of Star Lord from the Guardians of Galaxy when it comes to his character and background and Ironman when it comes to his Technological prowess. The villain character of Manas, Commander of the Complex played by Saswata Chatterjee, is inspired from Marvel’s Ronan who represents the Kree’s and works according to the plan of his Master Thanos, here Supreme Yaskin played by Kamal Hassan also plays an antagonist who somehow gives us the Vibes of Thanos in the ending portions of the movie.

What are your thoughts on the movie and let us know about those episodes that gave you a Deja Vu while watching Kalki 2898 AD.!!

Compiled By Jinu